Pakistani artist Imran Qureshi (b.1972) was announced the winner of the award in Berlin, where his works will be shown in a major solo presentation at the Deutsche Bank KunstHalle in spring 2013.
The award is based on recommendations of the Deutsche Bank Global Art Advisory Council, which includes internationally renowned curators Okwui Enwezor, Hou Hanru, Udo Kittelmann, and Victoria Noorthoorn and honors artists whose work “addresses social issues in an individual way and has created an outstanding oeuvre that concentrates on the two focal points of the Deutsche Bank Collection: works on paper and photography”. Qureshi follows previous winners Wangechi Mutu in 2010, Yto Barrada in 2011, and Roman Ondák in 2012. Trained in miniature painting, Qureshi works from the motifs, symbolism, and ornaments of the Moghul tradition that flourished in the 16th and 17th centuries in the north of the Indian subcontinent.
Imran Qureshi is Assistant Professor at the Department of Fine Art, National College of Arts, Lahore, Pakistan, where he teaches miniature painting. His works have been shown in solo and group exhibitions and collected across Japan, India, the UK, the US, Australia and Pakistan. Qureshi has been involved in international contemporary art surveys on South Asia, notably the exhibition East–West Divan: Contemporary Art from Afghanistan, Iran & Pakistan at the Venice Biennale 2009. He has created large scale installations in architectural spaces at the Singapore Biennial, the Asia Society Museum in New York and most recently on Cockatoo Island as part of the Biennale of Sydney 2012. Qureshi won the Artists Prize for his site-specific installation Blessings upon the Land of My Love at the 2011 Sharjah Biennale, United Arab Emirates.
